"Marvin Long, Jr." wrote: > > On Thu, 11 Apr 2002, J. van Baardwijk wrote: > > > What do you think will happen if someone would have attacked an Israeli > > visitor to the Parliament for showing Israeli symbols? I can tell you what > > will happen: the public will demand that the responsible government > > officials be sent home because they failed to protect the public. > > But failing to protect Jews themselves isn't failing to protect the > public? Failing to protect Jews' right to peaceful and public > self-identification and self-expression is not failing to protect the > public?
This argument won't work, Marvin. If their request for someone to refrain from endangering others isn't an attempt to protect the public, I don't know what is. You are applying excessivly negative motives to something that can be explained less ominously. Also, you seem to imply that the Norwegian government has the ability to protect all people within its borders from all dangers at all times. That just isn't possible, and should not be expected. Finally, nobody has presented any examples of how Norwegians normally treat foreign visitors. For all we know, they could be giving Americans a hard time as well. > > Now, what is more important? The right of an Israeli to > > openly wear Israeli symbols, or the right of everyone > > (including said Israeli, BTW) to be protected from being > > blown up? > > The former, by Franklin! I reiterate a question from > an earlier post: is there really sufficient threat to > all of Europe to justify the fear that associating with > anything Jewish will create a significant likelihood of > attack for individuals and for non-Jewish sites? I rather > doubt it. I would agree that they overreacted. I'm pretty sure we all would. I doubt you'd get anybody on this list to say that they acted properly. But you assume too much. -- Matt
